65 million years ago, the Tharsis Plateau on Mars
Venusians had been landing on Mars for nearly a century. Oceans covered 70 percent of the planet's surface, and the atmosphere contained a high concentration of carbon dioxide. The climate was warm and humid, though still somewhat cold compared with Venus.
Venusian bases on Mars were concentrated near the Tharsis Plateau, where freshwater was plentiful. The bases were mainly used for scientific research and breeding cold-resistant crops.
Nikola Tesla and Abbott had just landed at the Martian base when they ran into an old acquaintance, Colonel Feynman. As a representative of the Venus Alliance's leadership, he was organizing and coordinating the expansion of the temporary Martian settlement.
"Colonel, when will the leadership's relocation plan begin? I'm sure there are plenty of challenges," Abbott said to Colonel Feynman.
"Yes, there are too many challenges. Besides the lack of transport capacity, the bigger problem is that these bases on Mars can accommodate only a few thousand people at most. Expanding them is our top priority right now," Colonel Feynman replied.
Nikola Tesla considered the conditions and resources currently available on Mars. There was no shortage of living space or land.
Mars had plenty of land, with terrain better suited to settlement than Venus. It had mountains and hills, as well as deltas formed by great rivers. The plains were fertile and suitable for farming.
With enough labor, agriculture and animal husbandry would soon develop, especially with the help of intelligent robots.
Venusians had already entered the intelligent stage of the Information Age. Even if they could endure the enormous changes in living conditions and quality of life that came with moving to Mars, they probably couldn't tolerate a return to the agricultural age.
Tesla and Abbott had already settled on a plan to build a Vascular Superluminal Wave Power Station, but that wouldn't happen overnight. What was more, building the vascular power station itself would require a great deal of electricity.
"Electricity is the foundation of civilization. Colonel, I'm guessing the first step in expanding the settlement is to build several more power stations?" Tesla asked.
Colonel Feynman confirmed Tesla's guess: building power stations was indeed the top priority in the expansion effort.
Because Mars was farther from the Sun, its solar energy resources were far inferior to those of Venus and Earth. The Martian base's power came mainly from a small nuclear power station built decades earlier.
Abbott reminded Tesla that while Tesla had been asleep, a nuclear power station on Venus had exploded. The Venus Alliance had later passed legislation banning the construction of nuclear power stations on Venus altogether.
"So that's why you were so interested in my Superluminal Wave Theory and built the first Superlight Wave Power Station on Tower Island," Tesla said to Abbott.
"Ah, let's not get into what happened on Venus. We should focus on the power situation on Mars," Colonel Feynman said, helplessly reminding the two great scientists. "The small nuclear station on Mars is outside Venus, so the risk is contained. But if large numbers of Venusians move here, the nuclear ban will apply to Mars too."
"We can't consider expanding nuclear power. We could build a few dams and hydroelectric stations, using Mars's abundant water resources," Dean Abbott said, calculating the stations' output as he spoke.
Suddenly, an idea struck him. He asked Tesla, "The total installed capacity of hydroelectric power may be nowhere near enough. Could we build a tower-style Superlight Wave Power Station on the Martian surface before the vascular station is complete?"
Tesla was taken aback. He looked up and asked, "Wasn't the lesson of the tower station on Venus enough? You want to build another one on Mars?"
Abbott replied, "The Venus station's output was too high, which triggered the crisis. We can build a small, miniaturized station on Mars."
Nikola Tesla understood what Abbott meant. The principle of a Superlight Wave Power Station was to build a continuous structure more than 180,000 kilometers long. Because its length exceeded one complete wavelength of superluminal waves—that is, 170,360 kilometers—the structure was struck by the waves and absorbed a great deal of energy. The resulting heat was converted into electricity, making it a power station.
The output of a Superlight Wave Power Station depended on the structure's diameter. One could think of it as weaving carbon nanotubes into a rope: the station's power output depended on how thick the rope was.
"Nikola, let's work through the numbers carefully. If we use a thin rope to build a small Superlight Wave Power Station as a temporary measure until the vascular station is ready, it should be feasible."
As Abbott spoke, he unfurled a holographic map of Mars. Blue oceans covered the planet, while forests and rivers crowded the land. The planet floated clearly before the three of them.
Nikola Tesla's gaze fell on the volcanoes of the Tharsis Plateau. He pointed to three volcanoes standing in a neat line and said:
"We could build the tower station's base on the crater of the middle volcano. The terrain here is flat, and we wouldn't have to cut down any trees, so it's a good place for construction."
"There's another advantage. A volcanic crater connects to the magma beneath Mars. We can monitor the planet's internal thermal activity more effectively. If we detect no major geological changes around the crater, then the other regions should certainly be safe," Abbott added.
Colonel Feynman studied the four volcanoes on Mars's surface—one large and three small—and asked curiously:
"The three small volcanoes are almost exactly the same height and diameter. They stand side by side in a line, with nearly equal spacing, forming a triangle with the large volcano. And the large one sits precisely at the triangle's apex. The shape is far too regular. It looks artificial."
Abbott recalled a theory Tesla had shared with him more than a century earlier, back when they were students. Pointing at Tesla, he said to Colonel Feynman in a mysterious tone:
"On this subject, Mr. Tesla once had a wildly imaginative idea."
As a student, Nikola Tesla had been passionate about astronomy. He spent whole nights studying the Martian terrain through a telescope, especially the planet's volcanic craters.
Mars was dotted with volcanoes, but it had few huge ones. Several of the largest were arranged in precise geometric shapes, making it hard to believe they had formed naturally.
After the Venusians launched an orbiter to Mars, more high-resolution images were sent back to Venus. One night, Nikola Tesla burst into Abbott's dormitory waving two pictures and blurted out:
"Look. This one shows the distribution of one large and three small volcanoes on Mars. This one shows the distribution of one large and three small stars in Orion. Their geometric shapes are almost exactly the same."
Abbott specialized in physics, but he was just as familiar with astronomy.
The brightest star in Orion was Betelgeuse, whose mass was more than 900 times that of the Sun. It was also the tenth-brightest star visible to the naked eye.
To its southeast were three smaller, dimmer stars: Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. The three stars formed a straight line from the lower left to the upper right, with almost exactly equal apparent spacing.
"Oh! The shapes in these two pictures really are identical. And what's amazing is that each one forms a perfect geometric figure. The universe truly is a masterpiece!" Abbott exclaimed.
Nikola Tesla put forward his bold theory. He thought Orion in the sky might be a clever arrangement of the universe, but could the craters on Mars, with their exactly matching shape, be an artificial imitation of Orion?
Colonel Feynman listened to Tesla's theory with a bewildered expression, then asked, "The craters were made artificially? It certainly wasn't the Venusians. Are you saying there were once people on Mars?"
"There are dinosaurs on Earth and fish on Mars. Why assume that only Venus could give rise to intelligent life? Perhaps there were people on Mars many years ago, but they went extinct," Tesla replied with sound reasoning.
"Martians? According to your theory, these craters were left behind by an extinct Martian civilization? Then why would they make such a symmetrical geometric pattern?" Feynman asked.
"I think they were a message. Millions, or even tens of millions, of years ago, as the Martians faced extinction, they left these symbols to alert the new intelligent life that might emerge in the Solar System—Venusians like us, for example."
The one large and three small volcanoes on Mars mirrored the four stars of Orion. In the early stages of primitive evolution, intelligent beings in every tribe had independently learned to count with pebbles. The three neatly aligned small stars could easily be interpreted as "111." A series of ones arranged by place value was called a unary count in mathematics; it was the simplest arrangement of numbers—or pebbles—for primitive people to understand.
The same unary count represented different values in different number bases. Tesla wondered: if there had really been Martians, what had they meant to tell the Venusians with "111"?
Betelgeuse was the tenth-brightest star visible to the naked eye. The Martians must have believed that even if the Venusians were still primitive, they could identify the brightness ranking of the stars in the sky. It was a reminder that "10" was a special number—a hint at the decimal system?
If that idea seemed far-fetched, then the chance of the craters lining up as "111" by coincidence was obviously much smaller.
In binary, "111" was 7; in ternary, it was 13. That didn't point uniquely to anything. And what did the triangle mean? Some kind of architectural form?
Tesla thought, If it were me, and I wanted to leave a message for those who came after, I'd leave clues that pointed much more clearly to their meaning.
At the thought, Tesla gave a wry smile. Let's hope we never have to warn those who come after us in this way.
As a perceptive scientist, he intuitively believed that "111" hinted at "7" in binary.
In other words, if Martians really had existed, they were probably suggesting that we use the decimal and binary systems.
Palimpsest poem:
Its lingering radiance still shines back upon its neighbor. — Wei Xiang, Song
The stillness lets the lingering sunlight learn to follow its course. — Zhang Bi, Song
In what year did the seven-by-seven golden men descend? — Chen Tao, Tang
The three-by-three dreamlike form appears again. — Gao Side, Song
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